Make the Road New York

MRNY’s Department of Legal & Support Services tackles poverty from three coordinated angles:

We address key income disruptions that keep families in poverty and in crisis by representing low-wage workers in the fight to collect unpaid minimum and overtime wages, helping families to access and maintain public benefits streams; helping immigrants to become permanent residents and citizens, opening civic participation & employment opportunities; and eliminating debilitating medical debt and getting families the health insurance coverage they need.
We battle poverty’s worst effects by taking on abusive landlords to improve access to quality housing and to protect affordable housing stock; representing New Yorkers in need of healthcare and health insurance coverage; helping low-income immigrants, LGBT individuals, and other New Yorkers to resist and remedy discrimination in school, at work, and in their neighborhoods; and promoting wellness through peer health education, and a range of survival nutrition programs.

We work to change the systems that perpetuate and exacerbate poverty by monitoring the government agencies and public entities charged with enforcing our laws and protecting our communities; engaging in law reform efforts and impact litigation; and supporting MRNY’s community organizing and policy advocacy through strategic litigation, policy analysis and other technical assistance.

A HOLISTIC APPROACH
Our Department of Legal & Support Services engages entire families, with a coordinated attack on the interconnected web of problems that poor families face. Where basic survival needs are unmet, we provide an emergency food pantry, and deliver full meals to the corners where homeless day laborers congregate. Where specialized expertise is called for, our attorneys and advocates provide full representation before government agencies and courts. Where families trust peers best – as with efforts to reduce HIV, obesity, and heart disease – our peer health educators and member-run Community Supported Agriculture program intervene to provide education, trusted medical testing, support, and access to organic foods.

Click to read more about our service programs:

Legal Services at MRNY | MRNY’s Health Team | Survival Nutrition Programs

LEGAL SERVICES AT MRNY:
Meeting Our Communities' Critical Needs

Our attorneys and advocates specialize in the following areas:

Labor and employment law: MRNY handles a full-range of issues on behalf of low-wage, immigrant workers, with a particular emphasis on combating wage theft.

Housing law: MRNY represents tenants and tenant associations to prevent evictions, improve families’ safety in their homes, and protect affordable housing stock in New York City.

Public benefits and disability benefits: MRNY represents clients at Fair Hearings and in SSI and SSD Disability Benefits Appeals, to keep critical public benefits streams flowing.

Immigration: MRNY assists families in becoming permanent residents and citizens, to open up employment and civic participation opportunities.

Healthcare and health insurance access: MRNY advocates handle a full range of grievances and fair hearings to help families access and maintain insurance coverage, get the care they need, and avoid crippling medical debt.

Civil rights issues: Our attorneys provide litigation support for MRNY organizing around issues such as LGBT civil rights and immigrants rights.

Use of in-house attorneys and expert advocates, integrated into the fabric of our organization, makes MRNY’s Legal Services unique, filling a gap in the civil legal services network. Our model ensures:

Geographic accessibility for the most vulnerable clients. Many of our members cannot access other free legal services because of the hardship of traveling to offices located near the courthouses of each borough. MRNY’s neighborhood offices make legal services accessible for new immigrants, the physically disabled, mothers of small children, and others who have difficulty navigating public transit.

High standards for cultural competence. All of our staff are completely bilingual in Spanish and English and are expert in the particular concerns and fears of immigrants.

A commitment to representing the working poor and all low-income residents regardless of immigration status. MRNY is bound by no funding or other limitations that would constrain us from representing all immigrants; and none of our programs are restricted to households receiving means-tested benefits.

The ability to engage easily in group representation to leverage limited resources for the greatest good. Our ability to represent the working poor and immigrants makes it easy for MRNY to take on group representation cases involving, for example, an employer where some of the employees may be ineligible for representation by other legal services providers for reasons of income or immigration status.

A model that prioritizes early intervention, such as approaching a landlord to resolve a dispute before it becomes a crisis. Our approach is well-suited to our client base, for whom taking off work to appear in court often results in losing one’s job, and who are sometimes so fearful of the courts that they are easily intimidated into giving up their rights once litigation starts.

Structural responsiveness to client needs. Our clients elect a majority of our Board of Directors, and play a major role in ensuring that our attorneys and advocates remain accessible and accountable to our clients. Each attorney or advocate also participates on a regular basis with at least one MRNY member committee, afterwards making herself available for consultations in the informal setting of a pot-luck meal.

MRNY’s Department of Legal & Support Services is a member organization of Leap – a coalition of civil legal services providers meeting the needs of low-income New York City residents. Visit their website at www.leapny.org.

MRNY’s HEALTH TEAM:
Ensuring Access to Healthcare Services and Tackling Epidemics

MRNY healthcare specialists conduct at least one "Know Your Rights" workshop per week at libraries, places of worship, and community organizations throughout Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and parts of Manhattan. Through these workshops, thousands of New Yorkers have learned to exercise their rights in interactions with healthcare and health insurance providers – institutions which all too often unjustly deny families urgently needed care due to misunderstandings, lack of translation services, exploitative billing practices, or erroneous denials of approval for necessary procedures or medications.

As a NYS facilitated enrollment lead agency we help families obtain health insurance for which they are eligible. Instead of taking many hours away from family and work to visit an HRA Medicaid office, MRNY Facilitated Enrollers can prepare and submit all application materials for families who are eligible for Medicaid, Child Health Plus, and other public health insurance programs.

MRNY advocates help folks navigate complex hospital and healthcare systems in order to protect the lives and health of themselves and their families. Our representation includes filing grievances with managed care companies and representing Medicaid recipients in Fair Hearings. One of the single biggest causes of personal bankruptcy is healthcare-related debt – our staff helps New Yorkers get access to free or low-cost healthcare, obtain insurance, and otherwise avoid, reduce or eliminate debilitating debt.

In an effort to confront the HIV epidemic in our communities, we educate people on the basics of HIV prevention, connect them to free rapid HIV testing, and give out thousands of safer sex kits each year.

With an understanding that bigger change is needed to improve our broken healthcare system, our health team participates in statewide and national efforts to advocate for universal coverage. Through our position as steering committee members of the Health Care for All New York coalition and the Health Rights Organizing Project, we are participating in efforts to reform our troubled healthcare system.

SURVIVAL AND NUTRITION PROGRAMS:

Nourish the Roots provides full, freshly prepared meals at least once per day, every day of the year, to day laborers in Queens. MRNY supports this program, founded and staffed for many years by private citizen Jorge Munoz and his family, which takes the meals – along with a lifeline to MRNY’s other services – to the corners where day laborers congregate.

Click here to visit the Bushwick CSA webpage

MRNY’s Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program provides a way for residents of Bushwick – where it is extremely difficult to find fresh produce – to obtain organic, farm-fresh food while supporting a small, local farmer. CSA members purchase weekly vegetables directly from a local farmer for an entire season. Families can use food stamps for their purchase, and MRNY members coordinating the program provide recipes and nutrition education to help families incorporate new produce options into their meals and change harmful eating habits.

MRNY advocates help clients apply for, maintain, and correct problems with Food Stamps, Public Assistance, SSI and SSD Disability Benefits and other benefits critical to keeping food on the table.

Our weekly Food Pantry provides subsistence basics for our clients and other neighborhood residents while we work with them to find longer term pathways out of poverty. Every Friday morning, Make the Road New York distributes emergency food supplies to 125 families and individuals in need.